Maud strolled dreamily in her garden with her baby son. The golden air was warm and lapped them like a bath, and Colban pawed at the dapples of light that danced over her dress whenever the wind rocked the trees. She was as close to happy as she could be without Malcolm.
“Perhaps you will see your father soon,” she whispered eagerly to the baby. “Soon!”
“Well, Gunnilda?” Egelric asked curtly. He had known whom he would find behind the door as soon as he heard the knock, coming so late. “Come in,” he added when she did not respond.
The smile she had been wearing when he opened the door had flickered out. No doubt this was not the reception she had been expecting.
Egelric blew out the candle in the kitchen and went back to Iylaine in the other room. He found her seated cross-legged before the low fire, stroking the blind white cat that dozed in her lap.
“Tell me a story, Da,” she said drowsily without looking around.
Matilda pulled Lady Gwynn to her feet yet again and tried to coax her into taking a step. Gwynn was happy enough to stand, if someone would hold her hands, but when it came to walking, she would just lock her legs into fat pillars and resist any attempts to budge her. Matilda tried pulling her gently off-balance, but Gwynn would only be toppled or dragged—there was no getting her to bend her legs.
“Oh, Gwynn,” she sighed. “Your father will simply have to give you a pony, and you shall ride.”
Egelric stood behind the wall and watched as Sigefrith and Alred fenced with sword and buckler. This was something to see! Egelric couldn’t fathom how each could guess the move the other was about to make—he could swing a sword well enough, but he could never tell what his opponent was planning. When he would fight with Malcolm, his cousin would coolly inform him, “You’re dead,” as time after time his sword stopped just short of a slash that should have been fatal. As much as he liked Malcolm, it was always rather humiliating.
But he had been born to walk behind a plough, and he had never even held a sword before he came to the valley. It was already a miracle that he had come as far as he had in his thirty-two years. He was a squire now, and if he had still had Finn, why, the boy would have gone up to the Duke’s household as a page, and from there who could have said?
“Godwulf!” Githa cried when she opened the door. It was Theobald’s father’s old valet standing on the step.
“My lady,” he said shakily, bowing his white head. “My horse…?”
Gunnilda trotted up the path through the woods. She thought she had seen the shadows of Egelric and Iylaine go by, but by the time she had laid Bedwig down and tied up her bodice they were already lost in the trees.
But near the top of the hill she found them.
“Good day, Father Brandt!” Egelric called. He was still uneasy around Father Brandt. There were a few matters about which they simply didn’t agree.
“Good day, young Egelric,” Brandt replied.
“I’ve come to swear fealty to my new Prince,” Alred smiled as he came into the nursery. “I hope he is receiving.”
“He is,” Maud said haughtily, her back to the door. She was never particularly pleased to see Alred, ever since she had quarreled with his wife.
Maud lay exhausted on her bed, but her heart leapt. A son! A son! If only she could tell Malcolm!
In the dim light and in her fatigue she hadn’t been able to clearly see how much he resembled his father. Anyway, newborns were so red and wrinkled and button-nosed that it was already remarkable enough that he looked like anything. The one thing she could recognize was his mouth, for she had kissed those lips a thousand times before he was born.
“I just want to know what is a asshat?”
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